Hurricane Beryl: At least one fatality in Caribbean hurricane

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that there could be up to seven major hurricanes in the North Atlantic this year – an average of three per season.

Record-high sea surface temperatures are partly responsible for this, it was said.

Meteorologists have also noticed how quickly beryl has evolved.

The storm developed from a tropical depression to a major hurricane of Category 3 or higher within just 42 hours, hurricane expert Sam Lillo told the Associated Press.

Much of the region has heeded the warnings.

Shops have closed and people have stocked up on fuel and food.

Grenada declared a state of emergency and St. Lucia imposed a “national shutdown” with orders to keep schools and businesses closed.

As Hurricane Beryl barreled toward St. Vincent and the Grenadines, journalists Colvin Harry and Dionne John hosted a live radio broadcast from the country’s National Broadcasting Corporation.

As they spoke about the approach of the storm, updated the public on the latest developments, urged people to stay in their homes and heed warnings from authorities, their livestream showed the wind rapidly picking up in the capital city of Kingstown.

About an hour into the broadcast, the roof of a neighboring building collapsed and they had to seek shelter in a nearby house to ride out the storm.

“We need to pause while we assess our own safety here,” Colvin said on air with his typical unspoken calm.

“We literally had to run away from our studio,” he told the BBC via WhatsApp message after the broadcast. “We are safe in a temporary facility, but we hear countless roofs are gone. Churches, public buildings, schools have all lost their roofs.”

“It’s really bad, we’ve been hit hard,” he added.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is just one of many Caribbean countries in the path of the hurricane, which has increased in intensity over the past three days.

Storms that intensify rapidly can take people by surprise. While the region’s government and people have a lot of experience preparing for and dealing with hurricanes, timely warnings are critical to keeping people safe.

Human-caused rising ocean temperatures are causing these storms to become more frequent and severe. Storms like Beryl have the potential to wreak havoc in the region, bringing sustained winds, dangerous gusts and large amounts of rain to the Caribbean islands.

Low-lying coastal regions are also at risk of storm surges and flash floods, while mountainous regions may experience landslides, especially when rain falls on already wet ground.

In this case, it appears that despite the brief warning, many residents in the storm’s path had enough time to get at least the essentials. Lines of people formed outside gas stations and hardware stores in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as in Grenada – another island likely to feel the worst of Beryl. Thousands of homes were boarded up and there is still hope that a combination of experience and emergency response helped save lives.

However, with storms of this strength, sometimes all the warnings in the world are not enough.

The 2017 hurricane season was particularly bad. Hurricane Irma caused devastating damage across much of the Caribbean, followed just weeks later by Hurricane Maria, which caused major damage in Puerto Rico.

Because official warnings came late in the case of Beryl compared to other hurricanes, it’s very possible that some communities were caught flat-footed. Whether it was because homeowners failed to secure infrastructure that could turn into projectiles or because some communities didn’t realize the severity of the storm, the potential for loss of life from Beryl is obvious.

At this point, communication with some of Grenada’s smaller islands, such as Carriacou and Petit Martinique, is disrupted. Even for the governments, it is just a matter of waiting for the storm to pass and then assessing the extent of the damage.

Currently, Beryl is causing immediate concern for several nations already feeling the effects and other islands still waiting for the plague to pass.

But all of these circumstances do not bode well for the rest of the Atlantic hurricane season. Meteorologists and climate experts predict that this will be a particularly busy and intense year, with Hurricane Beryl setting the tone from the start.